Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 161 Lloyd MacDonald Service No. F89855 2nd Heavy Anti-Aircraft, Canadian Army Lloyd’s Story My name is Lloyd MacDonald. I was born on 13 June 1919 in Gabrus, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. I was the oldest of two boys and three girls. At the age of 14, I quit school after completing grade eight. I went to work for my Dad who was a selfemployed fisherman. In 1941, I went to Sydney and joined the Army as a Radar Operator. I took my Basic Training in Yarmouth and was sent to Petawawa for my Advanced Training. My unit was being sent overseas but I got sick on the train and ended up in Debert with the mumps, and in quarantine. By the time I got out my unit was gone overseas to form up a radar unit. I was given papers to go overseas on my own, and they didn’t even give me embarkation leave. I was put onboard the SS ANDES out of Halifax and landed at Mercy Docks in Liverpool. Across the harbour the docks were all aflame and being night time we couldn’t see too much. The Germans were bombing the hell out of Liverpool, England. I was shipped by rail to some camp in England that I can’t remember the name of. I went by rail in Yovall in South England and met up with my unit. Canada had no radar unit so I spent a year in the British Army getting acquainted with radar. This was around April 1942 at the entrance to Portsmouth, England. Then I got sick again and spent 34 months in the hospital. When I got out I gladly went back to the Canadian Army. Grub and pay was bad, but it was worse in the British Army. Now we were in a mixed Battery with approximately 200 female ATS. We worked together at a rocket site in Portsmouth. Sometimes the German planes would be over us before we heard them. We were the 2nd Heavy Anti-Aircraft with 1,600 members. There were three Batteries and each Battery had two troops with four guns. There was one radar site to each four guns. There was one radar site to each four guns. We sent out the bearings, angles and range. It was pretty much the same principle as used today. Information is from the radar to the guns. We were in action pretty much all the time. There were German planes over us almost every night and sometimes throughout the day. I was scared. Then we went to France where I lost a lot of my buddies. Three in my outfit were killed outright. My unit used to send balloons with radar reflectors up in the air to follow the weather. Information was passed on to the Air Force. Some of the balloons went up as high as 60,000 feet and when they were that high, they enlarged as big as a five-story building. Once we took up position 1-1/2 miles from Cap Gris Nez, near Calais. By noon we were dug in an open field and the Sergeant and I thought we would walk to lunch. We were halfway across the field when the Germans continued ...
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